Stay
by cynomynn
Summary: Behind the heavy wooden door at the top of the stairs, John Watson is sobbing quietly into his pillows. Sherlock knows, half primally and half logically, that it is entirely his fault, and a piece of his already shattered heart splinters off further. He is about to leave again, but the tiniest whisper stops him in his tracks: "Sherlock?" One-shot; 1000 words.


_Stay_

Screams in the dark awaken him. They are awful; they are utterly heart-wrenching; they are John's.  
It has been three months since his "rebirth," and John's recurring nightmares have kept them both awake for far longer than is healthy. Sherlock had not expected the nightmares to return, had thought that he had gotten rid of them all those years ago. For three months (twelve weeks; eighty-four days; two thousand hours) Sherlock has been back, and the nightmares persist in spite of all his efforts: nothing, _nothing_ he does makes them go away again.  
He tried absolutely everything he could think of, and John never sleeps any more peacefully. Running after criminals had not helped. John's therapist had not helped. Slipping medication into John's tea had not helped.  
Something about tonight felt different, somehow. Was there a sound? a smell? Was the barometric pressure off? Sherlock swings his feet off the bed and onto the cold hardwood. He rubs his eyes, tells himself that_ he is not tired_, and decides to do what he does best: investigate.  
At two in the morning, the flat is quiet: a rare occurrence, in and of itself. It only strengthens the feeling that something is horridly wrong. As Sherlock toes towards the kitchen, seventeen different ideas about what was out of place run through his brain, but he dismisses each quickly. None of them fit the evidence. He starts back towards his bedroom, but climbs the stairs to John's instead. _Creak, creak, crick._  
When Sherlock reaches the top and the creaking stops, he realizes what is wrong. Behind the heavy wooden door at the top of the stairs, John Watson is sobbing quietly into his pillows. Sherlock knows, half primally and half logically, that it is entirely his fault, and a piece of his already shattered heart splinters off further. He is about to leave again, but the tiniest whisper stops him in his tracks:  
"Sherlock?"  
Feet frozen in place, Sherlock waits. Perhaps John will go back to sleep, dismiss his presence as a hypnopompic imagining.  
"Sherlock," John calls again, "I know you're out there. You can come in. If you want to, I mean." The detective hears the unspoken _please_ as plainly as if it had passed through John's lips. Sherlock hesitates. This is new territory. John had never invited him in before, had never, ever, ever talked to anyone after one of the nightmares. Creak, creak, crick - this time it's Sherlock's heart.  
The door swings open silently. There are tears drying on John's cheeks, and dark circles under his eyes. The sheets are hopelessly and violently tangled around the doctor, but John pats them gently and Sherlock warily sits down on top of the bed.  
"What brings you up here in the middle of the night?" the soldier asks, badly feigning surprise. Sherlock knits his brows together in a frown and opens his mouth to say something caustic, but is interrupted. "Nevermind. I know why you're here. Sorry for waking you up. It won't happen again, I promise." John shoos the consulting detective away, but Sherlock doesn't budge.  
"John," Sherlock starts, "I'm not sure– I mean, I've tried to–" No, that's not right, he thinks to himself. How could he bring up the thoughts that were tromping 'round his head? _i want to help john these nightmares are hurting you and i hate them please get better john i need you to be better i need you to stay_

But no more words come out. Sherlock's mouth is for once, horridly, awfully, disconnected from his brain and he can't say a single thing. John's hands worry at the sheets and Sherlock stares at the doctor's hands, his brain flying and his mouth firmly grounded.

"The dreams – they're not...they're not about the war anymore, Sherlock." John whispers. There are new tears pooling in his eyes, and Sherlock wants them to _go away but what do I do? How do I fix this?_

"Ever since you...you..." Jon chokes out "you _left_," and there's a knot in both of their throats but neither will admit it, "they've been about you. Being dead. It's just you, jumping, over and over and over again and there's nothing I can do at all, and there's always blood on the pavement, on my hands, and it's always far too much and it's so dark it's almost black...and I know you're alive, I do, but the nightmares just keep coming and there's nothing I can do to stop them."

Sherlock is, to say the least, stunned. John's nightmares were about _him_? He'd known that his 'death' had broken John almost beyond repair, but that it was still affecting the doctor was... was... painful, guilt-worthy, and somehow, made oh so much sense.

Sherlock's nightly torments (the ones he would never, ever, _ever_ tell John about) were always the same. There was blood on the pavement and blood in his hair, but it was not his own. St Bart's towered behind him, and John's body was limp in his arms because _he had been too late. _Moriarty's snipers saw through his bluff in the dream, and John paid the price with his lifeblood.

It is the stunning similarity that shocks Sherlock into action. He crawls on all fours across John's rumpled sheets and shimmies down beside his doctor, his blogger, his best friend. He wraps his long, bony frame around John and nestles his head into the crook between the doctor's head and shoulder.

John of course, wonderful, strong, loyal John, does not question him. The doctor tenses at first, but once he sees that Sherlock isn't trying to strangle or smother him, slides down the backboard until they are both lying down, with John's head on the pillow and Sherlock's head on the soldier's chest. John's breath snuffles in Sherlock's hair, and Sherlock's fingers curl loosely around John's left hand.

They fall asleep together; that night and every night afterward. Their nightmares never return.


End file.
